I know you're all shaking your head about this title.
What in the heck is he talking about?
What I am talking about is a way to check your entire set of clubs to see if any one of them does not fit you and needs to be checked by a club fitter as regards its specs against the rest of your set.
Run the set is something I do every now and then on my own clubs, and with DJ. I do every it time I start a lesson in the warm up phase with my amateur students. I do it for pros when they show up for a lesson, especially if I see that have a new set of irons or new woods in their bag.
Once a player has warmed up and is ready to swing and hit full shots, running the set starts with the player hitting with his most lofted wedge. He will hit three shots with that wedge, then go to his next wedge and hit three shots, then to his PW and hit three and continue thrrough the set, hitting three shots all the way up to his driver.
The point of this exercise is that we are checking for consistency in every club in player's bag.
What this means is that if his clubs are well built, and match in their shaft flex, lie angle and other specs, he should hit a good to pretty good shot with every club on the first hit.
If he hits a poor shot and needs a second and a third to hit a good to descent shot, a red flag goes up on that club.
Something is wrong.
And usually, with this test, the two main “culprits” are shaft flex and, for irons, the lie angle.
I had a Tour player one day run the set from 60 degree SW thru the 3 wood with just perfect hits on the first ball thru the 3 wood.
He had a new driver and his first swing hit a thin block slice.
Second shot was a pull hook.
Third was a straight, thin low cut up the middle.
Three swings and not even one descent shot.
I took his club, and checked the shaft band. It said 'Dynamic Gold X300″. That was the same band on every club in his bag. I tested it with three swings. Being an X300, this shaft should have been too stiff for me and good swings should produce thin heel cuts or blocked shots. First hit was a block slice. Second was a pull hook and third was a thin, low cut up the middle.
I looked at the Pro and asked how long this club had been in the bag. He said, 'A month.'
I asked how his hitting fairways had been. 'Real bad,' he said.
I am stunned and in shock that he has hit this club so bad and it is still in the bag, and in this time he has never had it checked. So, somewhere between asking and stating, I said, 'Can't you feel that your 3 wood shaft is a telephone pole and your driver is a fishing pole?'
He replied with a shrug of the shoulders and said 'No. Heck, they're both X300 shafts.'
I countered with, 'They both have X300 bands on them, but the driver is no where near an X300 and my guess it's a regular at best. Somehow, that shaft got the wrong band on it.'
I ended the lesson, and sent him to the local club builder to get it checked, and re-shafted with a real X300.
Well, the shat flexed out to a weak to mid-regular, which meant it was a minimum of two flexes too weak. When a shaft is that weak, you can hit it to the right because the shaft did not kick to impact. Left happens when it over kicks and the thin, relatively straight is when you hold on trying not to hook it. Either way, it is 100 percent not playable for a player needing an X300. He came back to the range with a real X300 hundred now in the same head and was just pounding them solid, straight and long down the middle.
What does this mean for you?
Every golfer can test his full set of clubs by running the set.
Any club that you need to hit more than three shots to get a descent shot is suspect and should be checked by a club fitter.
For best results, always check your suspect club against your favorite, always faithful club. (Your 'faithful club' is the one that if you had a Do or Die shot, that's the one you'd choose.)
You will hit better shots, play better golf and shoot lower scores if all the clubs in your bag are in sync.
Well, I am off to my club guy to get my five wood checked.
I have three of them and none are consistent enough to stay in the bag. We're going to match them against my 3 wood which is my 'gold standard' club and to which all my clubs are flexed to match. I have a tournament in two weeks and I am making sure the only mongrel club in my bag, the 5 wood become a pedigree and fits in and will be a consistent player like all the rest.
So, run your set, and if you find mongrels, get them checked and changed.
Remember, clubs are tools; like a good suit makes you look good, the better your tools fit you, the better you'll play.
The Surge!
P.S. No matter what clubs you use, a good swing is essential if you want to consistently hit golf balls farther, straighter and more solid. I show you exactly how my PGA students do it — often within just a couple buckets of balls — in the Peak Performance Golf Swing DVD's.
You can grab your own copy and start beating your friends every time you play at:
If you get your set today, I'll even pay the freight.
But don't dilly-dally, we're not offering these DVD's this inexpensively (and paying the shipping) much longer.
Hurry.